Another book that I recently read was Space Cadet, by Robert Heinlein. I bought this at the Fantasy Centre last time I was in London.
This is one of Heinlein’s so called juveniles stories. It’s about young boys training to become officers in the Interplanetary Patrol. No girls are allowed there. It’s a kind of adventure that boys in the end of the 40’s might have liked. The science is silly as well. Even when this was written, it wouldn’t have seemed likely to find intelligent beings on Mars and Venus and in the asteroid belt. I had hoped that this book was a Starship Troopers light version, but it wasn’t. 🙁
Eventhough I didn’t enjoy reading this, there was some good parts in the book. The meeting with the primitives on Venus was interesting. When it turned out that the primitives actually were the advanced venusians I thought about when I read something similar… Oh yes, is was the 2300AD adventure called “Ranger”. 😕
I have just read 1632 and 1633 by Eric Flint. 1632 was an interesting story set in an alternative universe where a small American modern town ended up in Germany in 1632. I think the idea for this book was great, and that the story was very good. I especially like Gustavus Adolphus, and that he wasn’t killed in Lützen. (No more spoilers here…)
1633 was the next book in the series. David Weber helped Eric Flint with this book. Personally I guess that was the wrong person to pick for such a project. The main character became something of a super hero. Just like in his Harrington books. 🙁 My friend Jonas, who read these books just before me had warned me about this. The book was still quite good, but not as good as 1632.
I’ll probably read some other book in the series since the setting was nice. There is also a RPG about this setting. From what I read about it, I guess that it would be better to use GURPS (or other generic rules) for this setting instead. GURPS Alternate Earths or Infinite Worlds would be helpful. Then You can use maps and ideas from the 1632 Fan Site.
I first read Dune in 1984. I liked it a lot and later read and enjoyed the five sequels.
When I read Dune and the following novels by Frank Herbert I could see where the ideas for the nobles in Traveller has got (some of) its inspiration from. I also liked the style in which these books was written, with chapters about the different adversaries that met in a confrontation in the final chapters.
Other than that there wasn’t many ideas from the books that could be used in Traveller. There are no personal shields in Traveller, nor are there any Guild monopoly for transportation, and not much cloning (with restored memories) either. But this doesn’t matter. These books are still a great source for inspiration for Traveller just because of how the nobles are described. It is also some of the best science fiction that I have read.
Now I have read one of the new prequels called House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. This was an interesting book written in the same style as Frank Herbert’s Dune novels. It described the intrigues of the nobility in the Dune Universe very nicely, and the book also had a good plot. Now I just must read the rest of the prequels. 🙂
With the help of some free Gimp plugins (Planet Render and Star Scape) I have made the image below. While it might not be as good as the plugins from Flaming Pear, it is still cool that You can make some nice images using free software. 😎
If I would have tried a bit harder, I might have been able to do something that would have looked a bit better. The image below is just to show You what is possible. (The image has also been compressed to a jpeg image so that it will load faster. This compression have added some distortion as well…)
This book was interesting, but had really nothing useful for traveller. It was full of funny ideas, like what the nano-bots could do for you like sex changes and brushing your teeth.
It also had an interesting setting. Humanity had been thrown out from earth by some super race of dolphin lovers, so now humanity live on the moon and on the other planets, and were not allowed to go back to earth. The main character is a reporter, who is supposed two write an article series for the 200 year anniversary, since the war with the aliens.
Read this book. This is important stuff! This is the true story
about how Douglas Adams went all around the world to see and
write about endangered species. The book is not only interesting,
it is also fun to read, since it is Douglas Adams who has written
it, but it is at the same time a very important book about
ecology.
This is not Science Fiction, but since it is Douglas Adams that have written the book I thought that I should post the review here as well. 🙂
